animal crossing theory: ribbot was going through some shit from new leaf to new horizons
so ribbot's whole thing actually used to be space. his appearance is possibly based on the luna 2 spacecraft, the first spacecraft to touch the surface of the moon.
and his entire house was space-themed, designed to look like the surface of the moon, every galactic item he could find slapped everywhere. the layout barely changed at all over the different games.
his fashion taste was always flashy: his favorite styles were striking and zany, and his least favorites were severe and refined. in wild world, the fucking lovely furniture series was one of his favorites. he's a JOCK! bro was NOT afraid to express himself and his interests. according to his e-reader card, the villagers were confused about him. did he gaf? probably not.
but then, for whatever reason, it all started to change in new leaf. gone was any semblance of outer space in his home, replaced with a combination of items from the sleek series and various tech-related pieces. the only artifact from his old decor was the quazoid in the corner. (he also switched catchphrases with lily for some reason which was weird.) to top it off, his favorite furniture styles are now dignified and trendy, a far cry from his ridiculous wild world lineup of modern, lovely, and cabin.
in happy home designer, he asked for a robo-house, entirely featuring the robo series. that series was listed as his favorite in city folk, which is good... but again, no relation to space. you'd think they just retconned it, but his dream is still stated to be an astronaut in new leaf... so something seems to be up there. what happened to his main interest?
in new horizons, things get even worse. despite his dedication to flashy clothes in every previous game, he now wears simple and active clothes. his deafult clothing is a basic blue hoodie, even though he wore obviously robot-related outfits in every game prior. and his house...
what the hell. two giant servers, two computers, an entire work station... the only things not related to tech are a stereo and a sickeningly plain bed, both shoved in the corner. if any semblance of his flashy and proud old personality are still there, they've been suppressed as hell. in fact, this house almost comes off as if he's constantly trying to repair or upgrade himself, like he's not satisfied with who he his. again, a very significant far cry from the previous games, where it came off like he was all about expressing himself, even when it would be considered strange.
either this is the worst case of flanderization of all time, or something happened to ribbot over the past 10 years that completely nuked all of his self-esteem and gave him a serious aversion to expressing himself. and the icing on the cake is his pocket camp mini-bio:
...why would they need to specify this, of all things? especially when it was HARDLY implied that he gets judged for being a robot in the original game. everyone was just confused about why he exercised despite being a robot, and ribbot himself wouldn't even confirm it for them! he DID NOT GAF! plus, the other robot villager's descriptions don't even acknowledge them being machines! so what the actual hell could have happened for him to start wearing basic clothes and turn his home from a life-sized moon diorama to an iphone repair shop!?
that's why i think that this poor thing was going through some serious shit from new leaf to new horizons. everyone draw ribbot more